C# obtaining XML attributes

Question

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C#: Read XML Attribute using XmlDocument

In C# if I were to have the XMLDocument containing:

<Hello>
<Person:"Alan" Saying:"My name is Alan">
</Hello>

Then how might I obtain the single attribute "Saying"? I've found code which works when a single attribute is contained within the "<>" however it does not appear to work where there are multiple attributes inside as is above.

Any help would be much appreciated, I'm rather a C# novice :)

Check out the XmlSerializer. Also, those colons should be equals signs. — Steve Konves, Jun 28 '12 at 16:19
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/933687/c-read-xml-attribute-using-xmldocument — Dave Ziegler, Jun 28 '12 at 16:19
@SteveKonves: Even then, it wouldn't be well-formed Xml. `Person` in the sample serves as both an element name and an attribute name for some reason. — O. R. Mapper, Jun 28 '12 at 16:19
true. that second element needs an element name and a closing tag. — Steve Konves, Jun 28 '12 at 16:21

Sam I am says Reinstate Monica · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-28T16:29:37.180

4

First off, that is not valid xml. I think you want something like

<Hello>
    <Person name="Alan" Saying="My name is Alan" />
</Hello>

and the simplest way to get Alan's Saying is

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load("filename.xml");
string saying = doc.SelectSingleNode("//Person[@name=Alan]").Attributes["saying"].Value;

for a more detailed explanation of why that works, see XPath Examples

edited Jun 28 '12 at 16:29

answered Jun 28 '12 at 16:24

Sam I am says Reinstate Monica

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Steve Konves · Answer 2 · 2012-06-28T16:33:09.213

Your XML should be:

<Hello>
    <Person name="Alan" saying="My name is Alan"/>
</Hello>

Your class to deserialize this would be:

public class Hello
{
    public Person Person { get; set; }
}

public class Person
{
    [XmlAttribute]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [XmlAttribute]
    public string Saying { get; set; }
}

How to use it:

// Create a new XmlSerializer instance with the type of the test class
XmlSerializer SerializerObj = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Hello));

// load xml into string reader
StringReader reader = new StringReader(yourXmlString);

// Load the object saved above by using the Deserialize function
Hello LoadedObj = (Hello)SerializerObj.Deserialize(reader);

Check out the MSDN article for more info on how to use the XmlSerializer

C# obtaining XML attributes

2 Answers2